Radical Squibs & Loyal Ripostes: Satirical Pamphlets of the Regency Period, 1819-1821 [By William Hone and Others]; Illustrated by George Cruikshank and Others; Selected and Annotated by Edgell Rickword

Bath: Adams & Dart. Very Good/Very Good. 1971. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 0239000463 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. Illustrated. 320 pages clean and tight. During the years 1819-1822 a 'pamphlet war' was waged between the radical William Hone and the Establishment, and it stands out as a lively and entertaining episode in the generally dreary arena of political controversy. Hone was a satirist of exceptional skill and, with the aid of the superb caricatures of George Cruikshank, his pamphlets became the source of immense amusement to the public-and of great embarrassment to the government of his day. Hone's brief career began with his light-hearted parodies of the Catechism and the Creeds, in which he denounced the widespread use of bribes and other corrupt practices among Members of Parliament. These so provoked the Government that he was charged with blasphemous libel; however, he defended himself with such ability that three London juries acquitted him, and he became a popular hero almost overnight. 'I'wo years later he launched a series of brillant parodies of children's nursery rhymes with The Political House that Jack Built, which was so successful that it ran into 52 editions within three months. Naturally enough the Loyalists retaliated, using the same methods, and this volume includes examples of their replies. Mr Rickword, the poet and critic, has selected i o of these now very rare pamphlets, which are reproduced here in facsimile, and in which of the total of over i oo illustrations some 70 are engravings by Cruikshank. .